


After The Comet

by Shwoo



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shwoo/pseuds/Shwoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evergreen survives the comet impact and tries to set things right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The Comet

Evergreen almost didn't think he was going to get out of this. It was taking every shred of will he possessed just to keep his shelter intact, as the gale stripped the ice away as fast as he could regrow it. But he couldn't give up now. Maybe he would die one day, but it wouldn't be here, and it wouldn't be like this.

He thought he could feel the wind slackening countless times before it actually did. So the storm really wasn't going to last forever. Of course. He'd known that all along.

The wind was still howling when he finally melted his cocoon, although it was only a fraction as fast as it had been. Evergreen sat up, feeling for the weight of the debris on his back, but it seemed to be gone. A small piece of luck, on the unluckiest day of his life.

He stood, trying to ignore his aching joints. All he could see was the remains of his castle. Was the rest of the world in such bad shape? Evergreen gathered his courage, walked to the edge of the castle ruins, and surveyed his kingdom.

Thankfully, the comet hadn't come down quite on top of him. Even he wouldn't have been able to survive that. It looked like it had hit somewhere to the south, but the castle was still well inside the blast radius. His domain didn't look cheery at the best of times, but now it was all black ash and dark, swirling clouds. There was no sign of any wildlife.

Evergreen stepped back a little, and groaned. This was all his fault. How could he have ever thought Gunther was ready for this kind of responsibility? He hadn't even begun to learn magic. He hadn't even begun to be worthy of learning magic. They'd needed more time.

Evergreen tried to summon some ice to carry him down the side of the ruins, but the effort of protecting himself from the comet had burned him out. He climbed down instead, falling the last few feet onto soft ash. If he'd ended up here, Gunther would be... He dug through the ash, and hit something white and feathery.

"Oh, Gunther..." Evergreen picked up his limp hand and dropped it, because that was what people were supposed to do when they came across a dead body. He straightened up. "Couldn't even get this right..."

He looked up at the ruins of the castle. "Chatsbury?" he called. If he'd managed to save himself with his magic, maybe he'd accidentally saved the others. "Balthius? Slimy D?"

No answer. He hadn't really expected one.

This was all right. There was still a chance to fix this. Evergreen dug around in the ash around Gunther's body, looking for the crown. There was still time to retrieve it, reprogram it to stop granting Gunther's very flattering but completely useless wish, and use it to grant his new deepest, truest wish, his wish for the comet to have never hit.

He'd never considered what the crown might do if its current bearer died. He'd never even considered what might happen if the crown had multiple bearers. There was a chance that it couldn't distinguish between its current bearer and the original wisher, but if things had gone right, that would never have been a problem.

Maybe he should have programmed it to reset itself after its bearer's death. But what if he fixed everything, and millennia later, some jealous upstart actually managed to kill him? All his work might be undone. This was the best way.

Evergreen's gauntlets were getting filthy, and he still hadn't found the crown. It was rigid, unlike Gunther. Maybe it had been knocked away somewhere else. Evergreen straightened up. He was exhausted, but there was no time to rest. He had to fix things before it was too late.

He climbed a low hill, which he was sure had been taller yesterday. It was hard going, and he was still feeling the effects of overstretching his magic, but he managed to reach the top. "Aha!" There was something yellow sticking out of the ash to the north, and it looked to be within walking distance. Everything was going to be fine.

Evergreen set off towards the crown. It really was bleak around here. It looked like nothing had survived, at least this close to the impact site. If he let this continue, life might never recover. This wasn't the Earth's first mass extinction, of course. An incident involving thousands of volcanoes had been what had claimed his predecessor, and long before that, almost everything on Earth had choked to death on poison gas. Life had eventually recovered, even from that. It had taken tens of millions of years, but it had happened. Could anything come back from this?

At this rate, Earth would never get any non-magical intelligent life. It was so lonely, with only three other people on the entire planet, and zero who appreciated his genius. It wasn't like Mars. Mars had had intelligent life for eons. Or at least epochs. And its ice elemental was insufferable about it.

It was no wonder Evergreen had started trying to mutate true intelligence in the local animals. Gunther had been the first success, at least on paper. He'd been...

He'd been what? Happy? Proud? About what? Some kind of success? What had he been thinking about just now?

Evergreen nearly sat down to rest, but he had to keep going. He had to set a good example for Gunther.

No, he didn't. Gunther was dead. Poor, stupid, dead Gunther. Evergreen really had intended to teach him magic eventually, when he was ready for it. He was still-- had still been too clumsy, and too childish. Last week, Gunther had bothered Evergreen with stupid questions in the middle of the night, and the week before, he'd spilled red berry juice all over the white couch. It had been a really bright red, too. Promising to teach him magic soon was the only way to make him at least try to behave, and even that didn't work all the time.

And it would all be a complete waste if Evergreen didn't reprogram the crown and Gunther stayed dead in a freak accident. A wasted effort. Evergreen hated wasted effort.

He shouldn't still be this tired. His magic should have started to regenerate by now, but it hadn't. To focus his mind, Evergreen concentrated on the pockets of ice around the planet. They seemed disrupted, but that was no surprise.

Sometimes he wished he lived in the times when Earth had been completely covered in ice. He even would have taken the huge ice polar ice caps from the era of giant bugs. But at least there was some of it around. A planet without ice wouldn't even deserve to exist.

Evergreen shook his head violently. Not even his element was helping him focus today. And the more he exerted himself, the worse he felt. This wasn't normal. Could it be the evil he'd glimpsed inside the comet? Could it already be this far from the crater?

He couldn't let it win. Evergreen stumbled towards the crown, trying to keep his eyes on it. He had to get to the crown. He had to fix Gunther's wish.

Something horrifying occurred to him. He'd been operating under the assumption that Gunther had wished to be like Evergreen, but what if he'd wished to _be_ Evergreen? Evergreen broke into a run. He'd never had to concentrate so hard on putting one foot in front of the other in his life.

He remembered what Balthius had said about wish magic modifying the fabric of the universe. He hadn't listened at the time, because he'd assumed that he would be the one to wear the crown. He knew what he was doing. But it had been Gunther, who'd had no idea what he'd been doing. If Gunther had wished to be Evergreen, then as well as transforming and empowering Gunter, the crown would also have to get rid of the current Evergreen. If he was right, it was trying to fulfil the terms of the wish by sapping Evergreen's life force. Stupid, stupid Gunther.

Evergreen stumbled and fell. This was going to be dangerously close. There was no time to reprogram the crown now, but he could buy himself some time by putting it on and making himself the target of Gunther's wish. He'd always been pretty good at programming, so he thought that was probably what would happen.

Evergreen remembered that he needed to get up, and struggled to stand. Then he struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn't rest now. If he rested, he died, and if he died, the world really would be doomed. And he wouldn't be able to impress Gunther with the story of how he'd saved them all. From... Gunter's bumbling. Gunter could never... do anything... right...

The crown was right in front of him. Evergreen crawled forward a little, until it was almost within reach, and closed his eyes for just a second.


End file.
